The collected works.

September 25, 2012

Code Becky.

Whoops, sorry for the long blog pause there. Grad school is keeping me very busy -- and the rest of my life has been fairly demanding too. Plus, I've been writing! In fact, that's what I wanted to share with you today, the (draft) opening pages to the comedic spy novel I've been working: Code Becky. Enjoy! (I hope!)

Code Becky, Chapter 1, (Draft)

If I hadn’t
answered my cell phone that snowy day in Brooklyn, none of this would have happened.

I wouldn’t
have become a spy.

I wouldn’t
have met Ian.

And Ian and
I wouldn’t be tied to seats in a 747 that’s about five minutes away from
crashing into a mountain.

This is not
the first “pinch” that we’ve been in together, as Ian calls them. As a matter
of fact, problems of this sort are a monthly occurrence for us. This gives Ian
plenty of opportunities to say, “If only you hadn’t answered your bloody
phone!” I used to try to argue with him, pointing out that if I hadn’t answered
my bloody phone, the entire operation would have ground to a halt and the
Prickler, a internationally-reviled-and-sought-after assassin-for-hire, would
most likely have killed the President of the United States. Besides that, I
would mention, hadn’t we now completed a dozen missions together, missions that
had assured that world went on much as it always has, without a nuclear bomb
going off or people finding out the truth about Oprah? Not that Ian would
respond to this. He always walks about a foot ahead of me, so he never hears
what I say in response.

This time,
though, Ian isn’t complaining about me. He’s out cold. Which is quite
unfortunate, since he’s the one who’s good at things like untying the knots of
the ropes that are pinning us to our seats, and/or flying the plane to safety.

“Ian!” I
yell. “IAN! IIIIIIIIIIANNNNNN!!!!” as I kick my foot in the general direction
of his slumped form. My stumpy legs don’t come close to reaching him.

Even
unconscious and bloody, he looks great. If you were casting a spy for a movie,
you’d pick Ian the minute he walked through the door. He’s posh, as the Brits
(which he is) say, and tall, and has kind of swoopy hair. He’s got a great
accent, sounds exactly like the guy who tells the Queen that her car is ready
for her. (I know, because I’ve heard that guy tell the Queen that her car is
ready for her). And he can wear clothes. I don’t know how else to explain this,
but he can really, really wear clothes.

The only
faults I can find with Ian are that he is an incurable snob, doesn’t really
like me, and isn’t waking up to the sound of my desperate howls, which is
surprising because he often critiques the way I breathe. I can get a little
mouth-breathy when I’m nervous. And I’m nervous a lot, because I’m a spy.

I don’t
look like a spy. I cannot wear clothes. I’m a little pudgy, actually, and my
hair does what it likes, when it likes. I’m not short, but I’m not dramatically
tall, either, and I have the bland, pleasant face of a woman who might like to
give you directions. I’m also – and this is the worst part in Ian’s mind –
American. Let’s put it this way: in all the time that we’ve been paired up, Ian
and I have done a million disguises – doctor and nurse, CEO and secretary, film
director and assistant – but despite being the same general age and of opposite
genders, we’ve never once been a married couple. No one would believe it.

Ian is
still unresponsive, so I wriggle around a lot in hopes of loosening my ropes. I
kinda can’t believe I’m even tied up in rope, to be honest with you. I mean,
rope. ROPE. Where does one even by rope of this thickness and size these days?
The guys who tied us up, they did not look like cowboys or fishermen, which are
the only professions I can see needing this kind of rope. I can’t even remember
being tied up with rope, like, ever before. It’s usually bungee cords.
Sometimes duct tape (which is great, because it stretches, so as long as one of
you can get a hold of the other, you’re golden). One time we got tied up in
phone cords, which was nuts, because those things stretch like crazy, and by
the way, who even has phone cords anymore, in the early 21st
century? But rope. Well, it’s old-school. And it works, I’m not making any
effect on it at all.

I can’t see
how close we are to the mountain at this point, but it can’t be far now. I
really, really need Ian. I kick my feet up into the air like a deranged
Rockette and send one of my heels flying into his face. The heel bounces off of
his impossibly high cheekbone, leaving a mark.

“Ow!” Ian
is awake! Success!

He’s
drawing a breath in to yell at me when he remembers where we are. Seconds
later, he’s used the sharp edge of his tray table to get the rope off his hands
and is pulling the rest of it off of his torso and feet as he hops to the
cockpit. Yes, I remain tied up, and all I can think is, “I didn’t even know
there was a sharp edge to a tray table.” This is what spying is like for me all
the time. I know so very little.

Seconds
later, Ian runs down the aisleway at full speed. He’s strapping on a parachute
and yelling, “Come on!”

I wait for
him to notice that I’m still tied up. He’s got the plane door open before he
does.

“Damn!” He
says. That’s my guy. No, “Dammit!” not even in the moment of utmost crisis.

He unties
my legs and torso and hooks my still-tied hands over his back so I am now the
world’s heaviest backpack.

“The
parachute’s not gonna—“ I begin

He’s
already swinging me around to the front.

“Cripes, Mitchell,
you’ve gained a stone. The plane’s going to bounce up once you’re off.”

We are not
one of those romantic spy couples, by the way.

We leap. I
don’t suppose it’s possible that I actually crawl up onto his head, but I
certainly cling to him passionately, and scream, the entire way down, even
after he pulls the parachute and our plummet to the earth becomes a much more
gentle, if brisk, descent. When we land, entangled, I am still screaming, and
when Ian peels me off of him and leaves me on the ground, I add clinging to the
good soil of our blessed Mother Earth to my repertoire.

“If you
don’t stop, I won’t untie your hands,” Ian says.

“We jumped
out of a plane!” I scream in response.

“Well, you
gave me a hug, and then I jumped out of a plane,” Ian points out.

“I hate
being a spy!” I say. “I don’t want to be a spy!”

“Too late,”
Ian says, as he always does.

“Once you
untie me, I’m going back to Brooklyn and I’m
going to be a schoolteacher and I’m not going to be a SPY AT ALL EVER AGAIN,” I
yell at him.

“Sorry,
duck,” Ian says. He unties my hands. At the same moment, we hear a crackle in
the underbrush near where we’ve landed, and seconds later, we’re back to back,
guns pointing out into the forest.

After 30
seconds, we relax, assuming it was a squirrel, and start the long slog back to
the nearest road, where we can call for a pick-up from Central. The plane
fireballed into the mountain, and we bet – correctly as it turns out – that the
bad guys have assumed we died.

Ian’s
right. It is too late to get out of being a spy. And has it been since the day
I answered my phone.